The Borderland in the View of Postcolonial Studies

Dąbrowski, Mieczysław

The article proposes reading borderland literature with use of postcolonial criticism. Poland is often called: colonist who has been colonized. I should add, that there are two meanings of this statement: firstly, Poland acted like a colonist in Eastern Territory (the time of so-called the I Republic of Poland and that can be classified as a “normal” behavior), and secondly Poland acted this way in the time of Partition, when it was colonized by neighbouring superpowers. This causes a special kind of complications and experiences which are written in literature, personal and historical documents. Using postcolonial criticism to read borderline literature means: 1. To take into consideration borderline, local (not only metropolitan) discourses, in other words, to take into consideration historical and political threads 2. To understand stereotypes of the Other/the Stranger in a different way. 3. To expose rhetorical rules and the aims of “unilanguage”. 4. To take into consideration (and to understand in a special way) the phenomenon of space and: 5. Fantasmatic type of characters and situation in texts, and also: 6. Literary escalation of borderland experience. These thesis are shown on short analysis.